Blog
Time To Go Back To School~ Local Power
August 2, 2010
There is a definite fervor for involvement around our state and nation, the problem is that our educational system has failed to teach the basic tenets of citizenship. I would submit that those alive today, with little exception, have not been schooled in the responsibilities of living in a free nation.
Many of us are quite familiar conversely with the perks, ie. Abundant food, nice clean clothing, more than adequate housing, educations, employment, paid vacations etc. without very often considering the genesis of such a blessing.
I am hoping with this post and future ones to give a practical tip of an actual step you can make to help in the fight to preserve freedom.
I am going to start with local school boards. Did you know that Arkansas spends over 60% of its general budget ($5.6 billion) on education? Think that is not powerful, $3.36billion?? On what?
Well I can tell you here in Fayetteville they are taking a portion of this money, plus $31.4 million QSCB money and asking for a 2.3 mill increase to build a $93million High School.
With 234,360 sqft that is nearly $400.00 per square foot, the UofA Ft Smith built a medical and dental lab for $150.00/sqft on a college campus.
In Lincoln, Arkansas, they are “issuing Apple computers or iPods to all the district’s students this coming fall.”
And the NWA Education Service Cooperative spent $421,000 on Gizmos.
The question is do YOU know what your local school board and district are spending and on what?
Here are a few places to start on your journey to find answers: https://recovery.arkansas.gov/programs.php?do:ShowCategory=1&cat_id=Education
I encourage you to get with a handful of other parents or taxpayers and begin to attend school board meetings on a regular basis. There is one a month, at least 2-3 people should attend, take notes and then report (hopefully on a blog) what took place. If you have a group of 36 people you only have to attend one a year. Surely we can find 36 people who are willing to spend one night a year helping to hold their local school board accountable for their hard earned tax money.
If not YOU, who? If not NOW, when?
It is very difficult to get people to engage in activity that’s question’s local Government. I took on City Hall last year about our neighborhood, and I walked the neighborhood and talked to neighbors, most of them were concerned about what was going on but were afraid to step up and say anything due to retaliation from the neighbors causing the problem, and local Government. A group of six of us did have a meeting with the City Prosecutor and he agreed we had a PROBLEM NEIGHBOR and as PROSECUTOR for the City he would do something, that was December of 2009, he has never contacted anyone of us with a solution, we have left emails and phone messages for him but he has done nothing. You can’t fight City Hall in a small town !
I have attended many school board meetings. Pinellas County in Florida has there meetings on TV every month. The people in the communities are responsible for allowing the actions of those elected.